Natural borates

Primary uses. borosilicate glass and ceramics; agricultural nutrients; flame retardants.

The chain — from the ground to the buyer

A critical material passes through distinct stages, and the country that leads each stage is often different — that gap is what this atlas exists to show. Each layer comes from a different public source with its own vintage, labelled below; shares are % of the world total.

● Reserves — where it could come from

Reserves are the deposits known to exist and economically worth mining — the long-run ceiling on supply, distinct from what is actually produced today. Natural borates's reserves are highly concentrated: 🇹🇷 Turkey holds the most (87%), ahead of 🇺🇸 United States (4%) and 🇷🇺 Russia (4%). USGS 2024 · reserves as of 2023

● Mined — where it is dug up today

Mining is where ore leaves the ground — the stage most people equate with “the source”, though it is rarely where the supply risk actually concentrates. Output is moderately concentrated: 🇹🇷 Turkey supplies 47%, with 🇺🇸 United States (24%) next. USGS 2024 · 2023 production

● Refined / processed — where it becomes usable metal

Refining / processing converts ore into the metal or compound buyers actually purchase; it concentrates in fewer hands than mining and sits at the buyer's doorstep, which is why it is usually the true chokepoint. 🇹🇷 Turkey processes 60% — concentrated. Turkey leads both mining and refining, so its grip is structural rather than a pure processing gate. On the buffers: 1% of supply is recovered from end-of-life recycling and substitutes are only partial, while the US imports net exporter of what it consumes. leading refiner only — fuller breakdown not publicly reported

● Recycling & substitutability — the mitigants (EU CRM)

1% of supply comes from recycling end-of-life products. Substitutability is medium — partial substitutes exist.

● Traded — who ships it

Actual bilateral trade of the traded form, reconciled from UN Comtrade / CEPII BACI. Pick a year below — 2018–2024 measured, 2025* nowcast, 2026** directional scenario. The full 2002–2026 range is on the interactive atlas.

Context

The most concentrated dependency in the atlas - and it is Turkey, not China: Turkey supplies ~98% of EU natural-borate imports (HHI 0.96). The naive view is scattered across member states (none above ~20%); the corrected view is almost a single bar.

Every figure on this page is computed from out/data.json and out/flows_2024.json by build_profiles.py — no hand-entered numbers.